1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a network game system and a client game device that use an external storage medium such as an IC card, and more particularly, to the network game system comprising a game device further including at least an external storage medium processing section for reading out a player ID (identification) that is unique to a player from the external storage medium and a server terminal that is communicably connected to the game device through a network and to the client game device that is communicably connected to the server terminal through the network.
2. Background Art
As the network game system and the client game device of the above type, for example, an electronic dart game device as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2005-131232 is known. In this electronic dart game device, a plurality of electronic dart game devices (cases) are connected to a network such as the Internet, and communication terminals such as a server, a personal computer (PC) and a cellular phone (mobile phone) and game devices that perform games of types different from a dart game are connected to the network. In each game device, a plurality of card readers in which an ID card that is unique to a player can be inserted is disposed, and data or the like that is specific to the player can be acquired from the server based on a player identification information acquired through the card reader. Further, a player-specific information such as a game score or a game history is stored in the server in association with the player identification information, and the player-specific information can be reflected on the game.
In addition, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2001-129240, a game system configured so as to enable a data communication between at least two image display game devices is disclosed in which identification data is transmitted when the data communication is mutually performed between the game devices, assistance data such as an item that is helpful for the progress of a game is generated based on the identification data, and the assistance data is presented to a player as a gift.